Sir TKHtlliam temple 95 



rise or production of something new in the 

 world. 



lyucullus, after the Mithridatic war, first 

 brought cherries from Pontus into Italy, which so 

 generally pleased and were so easily propagated 

 in all climates, that within the space of about an 

 hundred years, having travelled westward with 

 the Roman conquests, they grew common as 

 far as the Rhine, and passed over into Britain. 

 After the conquest of Africa, Greece, the Lesser 

 Asia, and Syria, were brought into Italy all the 

 sorts of their mala, which we interpret apples, 

 and might signify no more at first, but were 

 afterwards applied to many other foreign fruits ; 

 the apricots, coming from Epire, were called 

 'mala Epirotica ; peaches from Persia, mala 

 Persica ; citrons of Media, Medica ; pomegran- 

 ates from Carthage, Punica ; quinces, Cathonea^ 

 from a small island in the Grecian seas ; their 

 best pears were brought from Alexandria, 

 Numidia, Greece, and Numantia, as appears by 

 their several appellations ; their plums, from 

 Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from Damascus. 

 The kinds of these are reckoned, in Nero's 

 time, to have been near thirty, as well as of 

 figs, and many of them were entertained at 

 Rome with so great applause, and so general 

 vogue, that the great captains, and even con- 

 sular men, who first brought them over, took 



